


Different People

by autisticblueteam



Category: Red vs. Blue
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Anger, Autistic Character, Canon-Typical Violence, Canonical Character Death, Disabled Character, Drowning, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, F/F, Grief/Mourning, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Paralysis, Recovery
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-28
Updated: 2018-03-22
Packaged: 2019-03-24 23:15:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 19,921
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13821513
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/autisticblueteam/pseuds/autisticblueteam
Summary: Girlie survived Longshore.The sole survivor of her team, she found herself thrown out into the world with nowhere to go and nothing to cling to except the burning resentment she held towards the Freelancers. After years of aimlessness, when presented with an opportunity for revenge she snaps it up without hesitation.But reality is never as simple as fantasy. People aren't always what you imagined them to be.





	1. Alone

**Author's Note:**

> This fic is entirely the fault of one single line from season 10 that sparked off the thought 'what if it was Girlie that survived out of the Insurrectionists, instead of Sharkface?' 
> 
> This was also originally intended to only be a long one-shot, but it grew beyond that very quickly.
> 
> (in theory this should update on Tuesdays until all four chapters are up)

Her chest _burned._

One gulp of the disgusting water that surrounded Longshore had already filled her lungs—her initial gasp as a sharp pain shot up her spine had betrayed her. By the time her mouth had closed she was deep under the water and sinking fast. No matter how hard she tried to swim against it, no matter how hard she tried to push herself towards the surface, she just kept _sinking_.

Her legs wouldn’t _kick_.

Even if they had, the murkiness of the water robbed her of all sense of up or down.

If she were in the shallows, she might have stood a chance. All she’d need was one good push off the bottom, a mere three feet down, and she’d be back on the surface. But she hadn’t hit the bottom. There was no telling how far down it was, if she could get a good enough push to send herself to the surface without the help of her legs.

…could she even feel her legs?

Fuck. She couldn’t _feel her legs_.

Opening her eyes did nothing but make them burn, too. Silt and grime and god knows what else made the water that disgusting, polluted brown obscured her vision. There was no light. No telling how deep under the surface she’d sunk. No way anyone could tell where she was.

She was going to die down there.

Alone.

Her lungs screamed for air and it was tempting to let go, to open her mouth and let her lungs fill with water. Get it over with. There was no one coming for her. Fuck, she didn’t even know if there anyone _left._

What was the fucking point?

It wasn’t as if she _wanted_ to die. Every instinct in her screamed that she didn’t _want_ to _die_ , but what point was there in prolonging the inevitable?

Especially when it hurt so, fucking, _much_.

So she let her eyes close. Resolved to, on the count of three, let go of the breath she held.

And then her shoulder hit solid rock.

A sharp twist of her upper body, another jolt of pain up her spine, a strong _shove_ against the ground— she shot upwards. Unable to kick her legs she had to rely on wide sweeps of her arms through the water, pulling her up bit by bit. Her ears popped, her lungs burned and—

Air hit her face and she gasped, breathing frantic as she drew in oxygen. Her arms couldn’t stop moving, not even for a moment; without her legs they were the only thing keeping her above the surface. Couldn’t even risk wiping her sopping hair from her face.

Opening her eyes, her view was obscured by it. She could just barely see the concrete wall, maybe ten metres ahead of her. There was a layer of concrete and rock just before of it, an artificial shallow that dropped sharply into the depths she’d sunk in. All she had to do was make it that far, get to the shallows and keep herself above the water. Keep herself alive for when someone came.

 _If_ anyone came.

Taking a deep breath, she started swimming.

What could have only been a few minutes felt like hours. Her arms felt heavy as they pulled through the thick, polluted water, weighed down by her armour. Every breath still burned her lungs; dirty water stung as it dripped into her eyes; rough coughs wracked her body. Ten metres felt like ten miles, but finally her hand brushed the concrete and she was vaguely aware of the dead weight of her legs knocking against the shallows.

She’d made it.

Grasping onto the rim of the wall as tight as she could she held herself in place, lightly drifting back and forth with the mild current. Her breathing began to even out, the initial head-rush from the flood of air fading. A few sharp coughs forced water from her lungs.

All she had to do was hold on until someone came.

Someone had to come.

They _had_ to.

All of her energy had been sapped by her frantic fight to survive and her eyes felt heavy. Her grip needed constant adjustment so that she didn’t slip away, back into the deep water—but everything felt _distant_. Like she existed somewhere between consciousness and unconsciousness. Her stubborn instinct to survive was the only thing that kept her aware enough to keep herself afloat.

Between the quiet rolling of the waves, there were faint sounds of footsteps and muffled chatter from the shipyard—the Freelancers. Couldn’t have been long, then. A few minutes at most. Maybe that should have been obvious.

Soon, the relative silence was shattered by a loud splash and the brief, thunderous blast of an escape pod overhead.

Her brow furrowed. _Boss?_

After that it wasn’t long before the distinct thrum of Pelican engines passed over her, fading until they too disappeared. Left her in silence.

Absolute silence.

On her own.

Girlie was alone.

 

It’s so cliché, isn’t it? Waking up to the sound of a heart monitor and the unnatural light of a hospital room. But that was what she awoke to, that perpetual beeping and the bright white of the lights above her; the scratchy sheets, needles and electrodes on her skin.

Groaning, she rubbed her eyes. She felt… clean; all of the silt and the grime from the water was long gone. Her hair was tied back from her face and she was dressed in a flimsy hospital gown—white, like everything else in the room. The only visible flash of colour was the bright blue of the plastic on the IV in the back of her hand.

Examining herself with a drifting gaze, her eyes then fell on her legs.

Taking a deep breath, she braced herself for the inevitable— then tried to wiggle her toes.

Nothing. No surprises there.

What did surprise her was that she felt no immediate emotion. Nothing but numbness, a dull sense of acceptance. It wasn’t like she’d expected anything different. The pain that had shot up her spine, the stubborn refusal of her legs to kick and the lack of feeling in them—she knew what had happened before she even left the water. And being alone, desperately clinging to that wall for god knows how long, had given her plenty of time to _think_.

Maybe the fear, the distress, would come later, but not now.

Wasn’t like there was anything she could do about it.

Pressing the call button on her bed she sat back and waited until the nurse arrived. They barely looked at her for a second before summoning a doctor, a woman who was accompanied by a familiar, asshole of a face—Moxley, their ‘handler’ and resident prick.

He took position at the foot of her bed as the doctor pulled up her chart. Severe damage to the spinal cord around the T12-L1 vertebrae had left her paralysed from the waist down and only time would tell if she would regain any organic sensation or control. The rest of the report was as unsurprising as that revelation—water inhalation, broken ribs, everything that could be expected after that fight, after that fall.

After that big brute that should have been _dead_ tricked her with Demo’s arm and dropped her like a sack of shit.

“Arianna, nice of you to finally join us,” Moxley said, once the doctor had left. “Nice nap?”

“Shut the fuck up, Moxley. One, it’s _Leoraine_ to you. Two, how about I break your back, half-drown you, then leave you to cling to a fucking wall for hours and see how long _you_ sleep?” she bit in return, resisting the urge to throw the nearest object at his smug little puckered asshole face. Wouldn’t do her any favours, wouldn’t be worth the satisfaction of seeing him knocked down a peg for just a moment.

“See, you’re fine, going by that attitude,” he said, folding his arms. Throwing something got a _little_ more tempting. “Look, I’m sure you know why I’m here. Or do I have to spell it out for you?”

No, no he didn’t.

“They’re all gone, aren’t they?”

She’d had plenty of time to think about that, too.

“Yeah. Everyone but you.” Moxley pulled up a chair, spun it so the back faced her bed and sat down, leaned his weight on his arms. “Got five confirmed deaths and an AWOL. Diaz fucked off in the escape pod—probably thought you were all dead, can’t say he made a bad call. You should be a dead woman, Leoraine.”

“I know.” He wasn’t wrong. The odds were against her, the fact she’d beaten them didn’t change that. “I heard the pod when he left. Any sign of the Freelancer?”

“Nope,” his lips popped, “must have gone with him. We found the twins dead down there, crushed by one of the supply crates that was being moved around. Looked like the big arm got shot out and knocked ‘em down, dropped the box on them.”

Her fists curled tight, fingers digging sharply into her palms. _Fuck_. It wasn’t as if she didn’t expect it, didn’t realise something must have happened to them for them to not come _looking_. Maybe she’d tricked herself into thinking they got on that pod with Boss, that they got away, made it out _alive_ —

But no. They were gone too.

Just like Snipes, peppered with bullet holes because of one _dumbass_ soldier who didn’t listen to their orders. And Sleeves, laid out on the ground with his neck snapped by that unkillable _fuck_. And—

“—what happened to Taiko?” Demo. His arm, held out to her… how hadn’t she noticed?

“Found him in the water maybe fifty metres from you. Blasted up a bit by some explosives rounds, it looked like. Robotic arm was sliced straight off, clean cut. Probably didn’t last long,” Moxley said, much, _much_ too nonchalantly considering he was talking about the death of one of her team. Her _family._

But she didn’t have the will to bite, to tell him to have some fucking decency.

Fifty metres. Demo had died so _close_ to her; gotten unlucky, been thrown into deeper water already injured and without his arm. Drowned, or— or bled out, or _something_ , within swimming distance of her. Just like Sleeves had been just out of their reach, like Snipes had been watching over the team but none of them had been able to watch over them.

Shit shit _shit._ They were all _gone._

“Get the fuck out of here, Moxley,” she said, her fist curling into the sheets beneath her. Tears had started to prick at her eyes and there was no way she was going to cry in front of this slimy prick. “I’m gonna guess that’s all you have to say to me.”

Moxley stood up, spun the chair back into place. “Yep. That’s it. We’ll be checking in on you, funding your recovery. Just like we did for Wāng—before he, y’know, finally kicked it. Try not to do that, hey, Leoraine?” he said, reaching out to pat her head—

And nearly getting his wrist broken for his troubles.

He hissed, tore his hand free from her grip. Rubbed his wrist and held it close to his body. Girlie only set him with a stare, nodding her head towards the door.

He didn’t have to be told a third time.

Girlie dropped her head back against the pillow, squeezed her eyes shut. The cold sensation of a tear trailed down her cheek and she scrunched her face, swiping it away with the back of her wrist, only for it to be followed quickly by another. Somehow it felt… wrong. Like the tears didn’t belong to her.

Fuck, _she_ felt wrong. Frustration, anger, grief, pain—everything she _should_ be feeling—lasted barely seconds before they were consumed by this overwhelming _nothing._ Like everything had been wiped away, or pulled out of her. Leaving her blank and empty and utterly, utterly _numb_ when all she wanted was to feel _something_.

Sharkface, Snipes, Sleeves, Demo, the Chain Twins, Boss— they were gone. They were all gone.

And she wanted nothing more than to feel something _real_.

The numbness didn’t fade within the next week, or even the next month. Life in the hospital was a constant stream of check-ups, visits from Moxley and talks about her future. After a couple of weeks she’d been scheduled for surgery to create an cybernetic link between her legs and her spine that would allow her to regain some sensation, some control—in armour, she may even regain full movement. Not a perfect solution, not a clean fix, but _something_.

Despite the numerous risks associated with the surgery and the long, potentially tedious recovery period, Girlie had been more than willing to go through with the procedure.

Within a couple days she’d been able to wiggle her toes again and within a week, she was able to lift her legs from her bed. Sensation wasn’t quite normal, but it started to grow slowly over time. It was a monumental step in her physical recovery, but, even as they started to prepare a physiotherapy routine, she found that she still felt… nothing.

Every decision she’d made had been logical, not emotional. Of _course_ it made sense to have surgery to restore sensation and movement, of _course_ the risks were worth it, of _course_ she’d put her all into physiotherapy. She was going through the motions, reacting as people wanted her to react, making the decisions that made the most sense—but she’d yet to process what had happened to her, or to her team, because there had been nothing _to_ process.

How were you supposed to work through numbness? A _lack_ of feeling?

Every day that went by without feeling _something_ made her more frustrated—the only emotion that seemed to stick. This wasn’t normal— _she_ wasn’t normal. The people that mattered most to her in the world had died and she hadn’t cried _once_ since the day she woke up and even that had felt wrong, _fake_.

Why wasn’t she reacting the way she was _supposed_ to react?

Before she knew it almost three months had passed and she was doing regular physio. A fairly simple routine of basic exercises and attempts to walk short distances between support bars, designed to build her strength back up after weeks of moving very little and to foster the reconnection of her legs to her central nervous system.

It was slow going and tedious. She had to do certain things a certain way for a certain time and yet every time she tried to walk, she found herself falling flat. Never able to push herself past more than one or two steps, even after multiple sessions. One step, two step, fall. One step, fall. One step, two step— over and over, nothing ever changing.

Her physiotherapist tried to tell her that it was a process, that it’d take time, but knowing that didn’t make it any less _frustrating_. The longer she took to recover, the more likely Charon was to throw her out on her ass because she was no longer useful. What use was she if she couldn’t fight, what use was she without her team?

She was doing this _alone._ How was she supposed to do this alone?

That reality finally came crashing down on top of her when after a long, long week of failures she fell hard and twisted her ankle under her. It didn’t even hurt that much, but it was just one thing too many, one piece of bullshit too far—

Pitiful, choked sobs consumed her body as she lay crumpled on the floor, her ankle faintly throbbing. Salty tears burned her eyes and clouded her vision, spilled over her cheeks, dripped onto the floor. Her chest felt tight and _fuck_ it felt like she could barely breathe, felt like the fear of drowning all over again, felt like— like—

_Fuck._

She felt so isolated.

Months of grief, of fear, consumed her all at once. They were gone, they were all _gone_ and she was _alone_ and she hadn’t been alone like this in so _long_ and what was she supposed to do _now?_ What was she supposed to do when the only family she’d ever truly known was _dead_ or— or had left her behind, left her to fucking deal with their employers alone, left her to— to—

(Keaton Diaz, Boss; the guy who brought them all together—he may have signed them up for this, but he always had their best interests at heart.)

Batting away the hand her physiotherapist tried to offer, she slumped forward. Shoulders shaking, fists clenched against the wooden floor.

What was she supposed to do when her whole world had been torn out from under her?

Losing Sharkface had been hard enough. There was a period, a couple of weeks, where they thought he might _make it_. Where they thought he’d survive, despite those fucking Freelancers dropping a fucking building on him. And then he died and they barely had time to mourn before there was more bullshit to deal with, before Boss officially started taking leaks from that Freelancer.

(Mako Wāng, Sharkface; his over the top attitude, his obsession with sharks that ran so deep he wanted them to give him a pure black eye, to replace his lost one.)

They’d stuck their necks out for her. Charon had use for her intel and so they were told to protect her and look where that landed them. Freelancers on their doorstep, that big brute that should have _died_ —an entire clip in their throat how were they _alive_ —that aqua armoured _fuck_ who stabbed her, who threw a gravity hammer at Sharkface’s _head_ , the rest of their fucking team—

(Taiko Shou, Demo; a personified disaster, bad jokes and bad one-liners and no concept of an indoor voice, filling the room with energy. Ammi Karela, Sleeves; a big softy, always so casually touchy and happy to sit and listen—but a bit of a show-off, too.)

Everyone died because of those _Freelancers_.

(Devan Gabel, Snipes; the one sensible asshole in the group, so they liked to pretend, who watched out for them from above. Hannah and Riley Latimore, the Chain Twins; mischievous little shits, with their spray paints and constant tagging.)

The team she’d been working with for years, her family… gone.

Teardrops spattered the floor beneath her. Her breathing started to slow to a normal pace. She swallowed the thick lump in her throat. The heavy emotions, thoughts, realisations, that had been evading her for months settled deep into her chest.

Three things were true: her family was dead; she was alone; and she had to keep going.

She just didn’t know how.

 

In hindsight, one of her first decisions should have been to leave Charon in the dust. But hindsight’s a bitch like that, isn’t it? Always lets you know what you should have done when it’s too late. When the damage has already been done.

Things had changed, after the delayed grief finally hit her and she could feel something besides that overwhelming numbness again. Wasn’t fun—she cried at odd hours and intense rage would bubble in her chest—but it made things a little… easier, at first, let her kick herself into gear. It still took a couple more months for her to be able to reliably walk the short distances they required, but she made it.

See, she’d found her motivation:

Killing the Freelancers.

They were still out there and Charon still wanted them dealt with. Moxley assured her that as soon as she was fit to wear armour again—new armour, proper armour, stuff that would really support her weakened legs—they’d have her back in training and she’d be after the Freelancers again in no time.

Within a couple of days of the promise, she’d finally progressed past two steps at a time.

Turns out revenge is one hell of a motivational force.

All she had to do was think back to the shit she’d seen that day on Longshore, or to the aftermath of the MAC blast, and the rage that filled her helped push her that little bit further. One more step, one more length of the bars, one more round with the punching bag.

Often, she’d get stuck on the image of the big guy or the leader. Echoes of an old pain throbbed faintly beneath the scar from that— knife-rifle thing, when she lingered on that aqua armour. Sometimes she’d lie there at night running her fingers over the raised scars—up the centre of her chest, down her legs, up her back—and let herself remember the pain. Let it drive her forward.

 _Finally_ , she was assigned back to the field after months of recovery and barely held patience. _Finally_ , she was out of hospital rooms and training halls. _Finally_ , she could go after the assholes that took her life from her.

Or she could have, if that hadn’t been when she realised how stupid she’d been to trust Charon.

She knew something was up the second she stepped off the Pelican.

“Where the fuck…?” she mumbled to herself, scanning her surroundings. An old abandoned industrial district of some kind, not exactly an unfamiliar landscape. They made for good bases of operations, their old cell had used them many times in the past; after they were bought from the UNSC by Charon, after they started pretending to be exactly what they _used_ to be, they’d used locations like this to make it convincing.

So at first, it was merely confusing. Not alarming.

Turning back to the open bay, she called towards the cockpit, “Hey, where the fuck exactly are—”

Before she could finish, the Pelican’s rear door shut and it took off. Leaving her there, alone, in the abandoned zone. _That_ was when the hackles on her neck started to raise.

Something wasn’t right about this.

“Moxley, where the fuck am I?” she said, for once relieved that Moxley actually picked up. “This place looks abandoned. What am I supposed to be finding here?”

“ _Reports of activity from one of the central warehouses that might point us to where that Freelancer and Diaz ran off to. Might be nothing, but we figured it was a nice, easy little job to get you ‘back on your feet’._ ” He chuckled at his own little ‘joke’. Girlie rolled her eyes. “ _Just make your way there. Don’t have to engage, you’re only one woman, but y’know. Gather a little intel._ ”

That wasn’t her job, but fine. She couldn’t deny the swell of hope in her chest at the idea of maybe, just maybe, finding Boss alive out here. Freelancer or no Freelancer, he was one of her oldest friends and with everyone else gone…

She pushed forward. Slowly made her way through the grid of the district towards the central warehouse, the largest building in the area. It was remarkably silent, in the way these places often were; even when you camped in one, you kept it quiet in case someone was watching for activity. Listened for every sound.

Her footfalls weren’t quite silent—even in armour her gait was still uneven—but she kept as quiet as she could, making sure not to alert any potential occupants to her presence. She had no fear of a fight once Boss saw her, but best not to startle anyone.

There were multiple entrances to the warehouse. Easiest access was on the bottom floor, an unlocked door that she slipped through easily. It opened up into the largest, central room—a room that was completely void of life, but absolutely packed with boxes.

Boxes with the UNSC logo on.

“…what. The fuck.”

Clipping her gun to her back she wandered around the room, scanning the boxes for other markings. Found that most of them were weapons of some kind, whilst others were armour, other vital supplies. Nothing special, nothing unique, but… what were they doing _here_?

Buzzing Moxley again, she crouched and examined the logo on one box. “Hey, Moxley, I got no sign of Diaz or the Freelancer, but there’s a load of UNSC supplies in here?”

“ _Yeah, those’d be a bunch of the supplies on loan to us. Reported them stolen a couple days back, running theory is some Innies stole it for themselves._ ”

The words made her stomach drop.

Shit. Shit shit shit shit—

“Moxley you son of a—”

“ _Sorry, Leoraine. Been nice doing business with you_.” With that, the line went dead.

The roar of Pelican engines sounded above her, hovering so low they shook the shutters of the structure. Shit. Shit shit shit _shit!_

Yeah. Hindsight’s a fucking bitch.


	2. Waiting

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Writing from Girlie’s perspective here is interesting because it’s making me write opinions of characters that are basically the exact opposite of my own, since she’s so negatively biased.

The conviction was nothing if not swift. Girlie barely had time to register her actual charges before she was pushed through the system and thrown into a prison on some obscure inner colony, but they weren’t hard to guess. Insurrectionist activity, especially this deep into the war, could come with a hefty sentence.

With her history it wasn’t even a wrongful conviction. It may have been years since their cell had disbanded and they’d signed up to the UNSC, but their time in the military and working for Charon didn’t erase the plethora of evidence against her. All Charon had to do was plant a little more evidence to fill in the gaps and ONI ate it up.

Didn’t need the lone member of your questionably legal private security force getting in the way of your rising political power. UNSC Oversight Subcommittee her ass. The shit they’d done for Charon was exactly the kind of shit he was now in charge of investigating.

Funny how that worked.

Prison wasn’t kind. The newfound support of her armour had been stripped away from her so swiftly that it left a sour taste in her mouth. Sure, she could move short distances without it, even train for short times, but she relied on her wheelchair for anything substantial. And prisons? Turns out that in practice, they’re just not that accessible.

 _Especially_ not when the wheelchair provided wasn’t designed for self-propelling and any requests for an exchange were ignored. Insurrectionists lay low on the hierarchy there, always had; since the war started it had only gotten worse.

It took a long time and a willingness to sacrifice luxuries to get on her cellmate’s good side, get her to push her as far as the prison’s gym. Keeping up with her exercises helped, fought away some of the hopelessness and restlessness that plagued her, but it wasn’t a fix-all. Most of her days were spent wasting away in her cell, with too too little to do and too much time to think.

“You got any Innie buddies waiting for you on the outside, blondie?” her cellmate, Cass, asked after another long, long day of sitting around doing nothing. She was still trying to decide if it was better or worse than the hospital.

“Nah. No one left to wait for me,” Girlie said, laid back staring at the ceiling.

(Sharkface’s heart monitor flatlining. Snipes, pierced by the same bullet over and over and falling dead on their face.)

There was a pause. “Aliens or humans?”

(Sleeves, his neck snapped by the sheer force of one punch. Demo, blown up and thrown into the water. The Chain Twins, crushed by a fucking crate.)

Girlie chuckled dryly. “We’re Innies. Take a guess.”

(Her back snapping on impact with the concrete platform, water in her lungs and the desperate fight to survive.)

“Damn. That’s rough. Least I can blame the aliens for my lack of welcoming party instead of— y’know, myself.” Girlie raised a brow at her. “You _are_ an Innie. What’d you think was gonna happen?”

“I don’t blame myself,” Girlie said, rolling onto her side. And she didn’t, she never had. This wasn’t her fault, no; she knew who she had to blame and they wore white and aqua armour. Cass mimicked her raised brow and, in turn, Girlie mocked: “You _did_ murder a UNSC official, what’d you _think_ was gonna happen?”

“…touché.”

Huffing, Girlie rolled restlessly to her other side. “All we want is some fucking freedom and the right to self-determination, but nah, that’s enough to warrant killing us. I’ve never blamed myself or any of us when we lose people. Isn’t on us.”

“Shit, girl, sorry I asked,” Cass said, raising her hands defensively.

It had been years since she’d been able to think like that, been able to talk like that—but hey, if she was going to be treated like she was an active Insurrectionist again, then she may as well act like it.

For years, that pretty much summed up her prison experience: being stuck in her room with cellmates that were various levels of shitty; wheelchairs that didn’t suit her needs in prisons that were too big for her to walk; prison guards that didn’t care at best and were outright abusive at worst; long, uninterrupted hours of nothingness. No matter how many times she was transferred—and oh, she was transferred a _lot_ —it was the same. Every prison, every cellmate, every year.

Eventually she came to the conclusion that it was worse than the hospital, _much_ worse. In hospital, there weren’t multiple dangerous pricks in the building that could decide she was the next target at any time. In hospital, there was a modicum of freedom. In hospital, she had a goal.

Locked away in prison with no exit in sight, her anger felt more like a trap than a motivation. All of that rage she’d allowed to fester and target itself at the Freelancers had no outlet—but at the same time, it wasn’t something she could just let _go_ of. More than just a driving force, it came from a place of genuine hatred and resentment towards those fucking Freelancers, from a place of consuming grief that never quite faded.

Just as that resentment and grief wouldn’t fade, neither would the anger that sprung from them. As the years went by it only had longer to simmer, to gnaw away at her.

Everything that had happened since Longshore was _their_ fault—that was a fact to her just as much as it was a fact that you need air to breathe. Agent Carolina and Agent Maine and their team had taken _everything_ from her. Because of them, she’d almost died. Because of them, her family was gone. Because of them, Charon had no use for her. Because of them, she was in prison.

It was _all. Their. Fault._

And for all her anger, all she could do was hope that somewhere, out there, they were going through as much hell as she was.

 

Nothing was unusual about her move to the prison ship, _Tartarus_. Not only was it far from the first time she’d been stuck on a prison ship for transfer, but it wasn’t even her first long-haul trip with no clear timescale. The ship was filled with a co-ed selection of the UNSC’s least desirable prisoners—people like her, who they simply didn’t care about. People with quite the variety of convictions, from what she heard through the bars.

She’d always hated long-haul transfers. Prison ships meant even shittier cellmates and no time out of their cells. Sure, the cells were a little more spacious to make up for it—she was able to work out, thank god—but there was only so many hours you could share a room with someone without a break before you wanted to add murder to your list.

Weeks went by and nothing happened that challenged the monotony of the journey. The skeleton crew wandered the levels every few hours just to give themselves something to do. Prisoners yelled crude and violent things, but even those began to get repetitive after a while. Stassney did some dumbass shit at least once a cycle. Weeks and weeks of the same shit, of the same routine—it was driving her up the fucking wall, but it wasn’t anything new.

Honestly, the ship getting invaded was the most interesting thing that had happened to her in _years._

One minute Stassney was walking past talking about ‘hitch-hiking cheerleaders’—Girlie rolled her eyes so far back she could see herself think—and the next he was returning with a shady looking asshole in full power armour. The way he tilted his head was subtle, but Girlie had years of reading helmets under her belt.

He was scanning the cells.

They disappeared up into the staff areas and the chatter quickly focused on the new arrival. They _had_ to be in the middle of utterly empty, open space right now—where the hell had this guy _come_ from?

Girlie sat on the end of her bed, leaning her elbows against her knees. Even on a full tank and emergency reserves, a Pelican couldn’t get out here on its own and they certainly weren’t staffed by _one guy_ , power armour or not.

Something wasn’t right.

Her suspicions were confirmed less than an hour later when some big fucker strolled through with at least five people in black armour and killed the straggling guards.

It probably said something about her mental state that her only reaction was a dull, “Huh. Figured.”

Yelling filled the air, a cacophony of indistinguishable noise that only fell silent when a deep, commanding voice came over the intercoms with one simple order—

“ _Quiet_.”

Absolute silence fell over the room.

“As of this moment, we are the new crew of this ship.”

Someone a few cells down from her yelled out, “Well who the hell are you?!” and there was a pause, just for a moment, before she saw the taller of the two take a step back and the original guy take the microphone.

He started talking and admittedly, she was only half-listening until she heard the word ‘Freelancers’ in the midst of some verbose speech about needing people for some war, or something. But she didn’t care about that, no.

Freelancers. Fucking _Freelancers_.

She was listening after that.

“…now, if this totally awesome idea doesn’t sound like your kind of job, we’ll let you off the ship. But if you’re willing to fight for your freedom, then please firmly grasp the bars of your cell in a sign of solidarity.”

Let them off the ship, huh? Nah, no way that was as innocent as it sounded; there was only one way off of this ship when they were out in open space. And she didn’t plan on dying today—especially not without finding out what the Freelancers had to do with this.

So she got up, grabbed the cell bars. All around her she heard the sounds of hands slapping against bars, of indistinct mumbling. Some people sat back down, paced their cells with dismissive waves of their hands. Their funeral, she guessed.

Weakened as her legs were, her upper body had remained strong and when the purge activated, she had all the motivation she needed to hold on _tight._ The sharp, gut-punch of a tug tore her breath away and filled her with a genuine fear for her life that she hadn’t felt in years—

And then it was over. Purge doors slammed shut and the screaming all but stopped. Girlie collapsed to the floor, waiting for her cybernetics to recover after the sudden jerk.

But she was alive.

And they’d mentioned Freelancers.

Now all she had to do was wait and see what the fuck was going on.

 

As it turned out she didn’t have to wait that long at all. Not even another hour passed before heavy footsteps approached her cell and she was confronted by both the leaders of this little invasion and another prisoner. A man with deep brown skin and a pair of dark eyes that glinted with something inscrutable.

She’d never seen him before in her life, but that look in his eyes told her one thing: he definitely knew her.

“Arianna Leoraine,” the tall, awkward one said, “we’ve been informed—” his helmet tilted towards the prisoner, “—that you have history with the Freelancer agents we’re up against. Is that true?”

Huh, just like she thought. Somehow, this random guy who just so happened to be on the same prison ship as her _knew_ her and not only that, knew her history. There were only a couple of reasons she could think of that would explain that: either he used to work for Charon—unlikely, her team was known of by only a select few—or he used to work for Freelancer.

And oh, wasn’t _that_ possibility interesting.

“Maybe. What’s it to you?” she said, even as she stood up. Folding her arms under her chest she tilted her head. “Gonna let me at them?”

“Maybe,” the small, talkative one said, one hand on his hip as the other gesticulated vaguely. “Depends on a few things, like if you can hold your own in a fight… if you know how to follow orders… that sort of thing. Boring stuff, but necessary. Can’t have someone causing us more trouble than we already have, now can we?”

Rolling her eyes, Girlie tilted her head forward and set him with a firm stare. “Look, you point me in the direction of one of those assholes? I’ll do _whatever_ you need me to do. No questions asked. I’ve been waiting for a chance like this for _years_ , I’m _not_ going to mess that up.”

“Well then,” he shared a look with his partner, that tall, quiet one whose helmet gave away nothing, “I think we have some talking to do, don’t you?”

“Yeah, I do. But if you want that talk happening up on the bridge? You’re either gonna have to bring me some armour or send one of your guys to grab a wheelchair from storage,” she said, folding her arms tighter and standing her ground. Her legs still felt shaky after the pull of the purge.

The tall one nodded towards a couple of their men that were standing by and soon, they returned with a chair.

Alright, that was a decent start.

 

Their names were Felix and Locus. They were some mercenaries working out here in the middle of bumfuck nowhere on some backwater planet named Chorus. Somehow the locals had gotten the help of a couple of Freelancers and their friends. All the mercenaries wanted was some manpower to help them clear out the resistance and to get rid of the Freelancers.

Couldn’t say she agreed with the principle of the thing, but she had fallen far beyond principles. Years of boredom and building resentment had left no room for that, not right now. Not when she was faced with the chance to get revenge.

There were only two of them, apparently. Two survivors out of the ten colourful suits of armour she could never forget. At first they didn’t mention names—she couldn’t tell if that was deliberate or not—but eventually, her prodding got an answer.

Agent Carolina and Agent Washington.

The assholes who fought Sharkface (the entire left side of his face crushed and scarred, his eye gone, the bone implants he needed to survive—) two of the assholes that dropped that fucking building on him and Demo (his arm, gone, absolutely mangled, the missing chunk of his torso—) that fucking aqua armoured _fuck_ who stabbed her, who helped that big brute kill Demo and tried to kill her (her back snapping, so much water between her and the surface—)

Turned out the big guy had been dead a while.

She didn’t know quite how she felt about that, not getting the chance to take them out herself, but…

One was better than none.

“Seems like our goals line up perfectly,” Girlie said, sat in her chair. The helmets were still on, but she met Felix’s gaze through his visor. “I want the Freelancers dead, you want the Freelancers out of the way.”

“Ex _actly_ ,” Felix said, gesturing his pointer finger vaguely in her direction. “A nice neat little arrangement. You get your revenge and we get those _pesky_ Freelancers off our asses so we can finish what we came here to do.”

“You will be provided with armour and equipment,” Locus said, still unreadable behind that helmet. “You will work more closely with us and you will be guided by the Counselor.”

The Counselor hovered silently off to the side. She felt the weight of his gaze on her, observing, analysing. That look in his eye made sense when she realised he must have been some Freelancer psychologist or something, with a name like ‘the Counselor’.

Didn’t surprise her that they wanted to keep an eye on her, but it wasn’t like she really cared. So long as he didn’t get in her way, there was no reason for her to risk objecting.

But _only_ so long as he didn’t get in her way.

“Alright,” she said, shrugging. “That armour better be the good shit. Oh, and I work best with knives.”

With a hand over his chestplate and mock reverence, Felix said, “A woman after my very own heart. Don’t you worry, Leoraine, you’ll be supplied with the _very_ best equipment we have to offer. Just make it worth it.”

“Don’t _you_ worry,” she retorted, “because making it worth it won’t be an issue. Also— I’d prefer if you called me Girlie. Not Leoraine, or even Arianna.”

Even with his helmet blocking her view, Girlie could practically see the quick blinks of his double-take. “ _Girlie_. What kind of— seriously? That’s a _little_ on the nose, don’t you think?”

Maybe. These days she barely even remembered the origin of the nickname—it wasn’t that she was the only girl in the group, after all—but that had always been the point of their nicknames, they were ridiculously, _ridiculously_ ‘on the nose’. They were stupid, but they used them more than they ever used their real names.

She needed that back now, more than ever.

“Oh right, okay, says the guy who’s partner goes by the name of their helmet,” she said, raising a brow. Catching the slight tensing of Locus’ shoulders, she added, “Not being a dick, just making a point.”

“…touché. Alright, _Girlie_ , congratulations, you’ve got yourself a job.”

No, she’d gotten a little more than that.

 

True to their word they got her kitted up and they didn’t skimp out on her, either. The armour was top quality and it felt good to be able to stand without pain again, without feeling like her legs were going to give out under her at any minute. All black and standard issue, it was nothing _special_ , but it was more than functional.

Somehow, an off-hand comment to the Counselor about how she preferred her old helmet even swung her an old ODST model from somewhere. He was trying to make her ‘comfortable’, get her to open up or some shit—definitely a psychologist. For now, she let him believe it was working.

It had been days since the invasion of the ship and days since she’d been promised her chance at the Freelancers, but so far there had been no opportunity to act. Being stuck up here on the ship felt annoyingly like nothing had changed, but she held on to the fact that as soon as there was news, she’d be shipped out.

Hopefully.

Until then she was subjected to daily sessions with the Counselor. He was good at acting like he gave a shit, she’d give him that, but she wasn’t here to be psychoanalyzed. She gave him just enough to keep him satisfied without ever really revealing anything he didn’t clearly already know—even when he pretended he knew nothing. Offering up little bits about her teammates’ deaths and her need for revenge even got her some information in return, information outside of what he needed to tell her.

Agent Maine, the big guy, had finally been killed by drowning.

She’d be lying if she said that didn’t give her some kind of sick catharsis. _Nothing_ could have been more fitting.

Days passed by and she found it harder to suppress the frustration. Sessions with the Counselor were tedious and she had to watch her words closely. Any time that wasn’t spent with him was spent training, running drills to get her strength back.

After almost a week of nothing, the Counselor brought her another ‘gift’: red spray paint.

At first, she side-eyed it, wondered what she’d said that made him bring it, but finding no point in letting the offering go to waste she picked it up; it would make it easier for Carolina to recognise who she was.

For once the Counselor sat mostly silently as she worked, using the tools he provided her with to mark up her lipstick print and heart—once on the helmet, once on the chestplate—but it didn’t last forever. Eventually, he opened his mouth.

“That symbol… I take it that it’s important to you,” he said, nodding towards both the work she did and the matching tattoo that was visible on the back of her shoulder. There was another one much lower down, but he wasn’t ever going to be privy to that.

“Suppose so.” Finishing taping it off, she threw her hair back into a messy bun and grabbed a face mask.

“Do you find it representative of yourself?”

“I find it representative of me being a gigantic lesbian, sure,” she said, finding herself holding back an eye roll and not for the first time. Fucking psychologists. “Look, we all had a symbol; Snipes had a crosshair, Boss had a pill, the twins had their smileys, Sharkface had his fucking _shark teeth_ , so on and so on. It’s just a thing. It’s not deep.”

“Alright,” the Counselor said, in that tone that meant he really _did_ think it was deep. “Have you chosen to recreate the symbol to honour your fallen teammates?”

God this man was insufferable. Like fuck she was going to tell him _that_. “No. I’ve chosen to recreate it because one, I _like_ it and two, I want Agent Carolina to _recognise_ me.” She started shaking her spray can. “Simple as that.”

“So you want her to be aware of who’s killing her and why.”

“No shit. Doesn’t take a degree to figure that one out. Yeah, I want the asshole who nearly killed me and _did_ kill my friends to know who the fuck’s killing her.”

“I see,” he said, with that same tone; he really thought he had her on lock, didn’t he?

She was starting to rethink the idea that killing him wasn’t worth the trouble.

Opting to ignore him instead, she finished shaking her can and started spraying out the design on her helmet. The shade of red wasn’t quite the same but it looked good enough. Bright and distinctive against the black. There’d be no question of Carolina noticing the symbols.

Setting the helmet down to dry, she moved onto the chestplate. There was silence, for a while; the Counselor slipped back into that observant quiet, ever analysing eyes set on her.

She’d moved onto adding other red details by the time he spoke again.

“Once Locus and Felix have finished their work at the newest location of interest, you’ll be sent down to monitor the location for the Freelancer’s arrival,” he said out of nowhere. Forced her to restrain the burst of what was almost excitement in her chest, tense up to stop herself reacting too strongly. “I trust you’ve reviewed the files on Agent Washington and Carolina?”

“Of course I have. And no, I don’t have any questions.” Agent Washington was stubborn and survivable, but he was better with a weapon in his hand than he was at hand-to-hand. Agent Carolina was competitive and highly skilled in multiple ways; she worked with an aging AI called Epsilon and had units at her disposal. Nothing she hadn’t seen before. “No, actually, I do, but not about them. What kind of location?”

“An ancient temple of alien origin. There are several on Chorus, this particular one having been newly revealed. It’s a point of interest for both sides of the conflict, at least one of the Freelancers will certainly arrive.”

“Alright.” Alien temples. What kind of planet _was_ this? “I can work with that.”

Stopping the spray, she took a moment to admire her work.

Striking red, unmissable and unmistakable.

Agent Carolina would _definitely_ know what hit her.

 

The strange mix of anxiety, excitement and rage that filled her on the Pelican ride down to Chorus was… indescribable. A combination unlike anything she’d ever felt before. Years waiting for this opportunity, hanging onto the idea of revenge with a somehow resigned desperation. She didn’t know if she’d ever believed she’d get the chance, not after Charon turned her in.

But here she was.

They arrived on-location a little while after Locus and Felix had moved on, heading to some big confrontation out at one of the radio towers. Girlie only had time for a cursory glance at the temple itself and the strange bright light shooting out of it before she and her back-up had to duck into a hidden area, overlooking the central zone. Wait.

As the sound of Warthogs and voices approached the temple.

A voice that Girlie hadn’t heard in years, but would recognise anywhere, among them.

It took all of her willpower not to blow their cover then and there, to gather information first like she’d been told to. She had to stand there, gripping her knives tight to ground herself as she took in everything that was said—most of it was irrelevant, but once that alien AI appeared… well, she figured the mercenaries would like the information that followed.

The Purge. Any other day she might have felt some kind of hesitance in passing that information on, but as she typed and sent the communication she found she felt no such thing. Not with Carolina a mere hundred metres away.

Not when the mention of the multiple maps finally gave them a chance to act.

“ _Carolina!_ ”

Four of the ‘space pirates’—really, what kind of title—jumped out from their hiding position, rifles drawn, firing—

And just like she’d expected, the bubble shield appeared. (The thing that had killed Snipes, the death trap that ricocheted bullets endlessly, shooting them over and over with the same _fucking_ bullet—)

Like she’d ever have let the pirates have first shot if she thought it’d _work_.

“And _that_ was close.”

“ _Affirmative_.”

“Charon’s here?!”

“ _Urgh, they've been here the whole time._ ”

“That’s right.” Her heart pounded in her chest as she strode forward, out into the open. Looked down at them, at that aqua coloured armour that had haunted her for years. Rage, bubbling up in her chest—

Carolina looked at her. Girlie saw the intake of breath. Smirked.

“Well hello. What a _pleasure_ to see you again.”


	3. Doubt

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I struggled with this chapter for days and then pumped out like 3k in two.

Carolina’s visor glinted in the afternoon sun, tilted up towards her. “No. It can’t be. You—”

“Died?” Girlie cocked her hip, fist rested against it. Laughed, a dry sound. “Nah. You and that big brute gave it your best go, but it didn’t quite _stick_.”

God she was _right there_ , right in front of her after all these years. Staring up at her like some fucking deer in the headlights, noticeably flinching when she said ‘big brute’. So close that a single well-aimed, well-timed bullet would finish this quicker than even Carolina could react—once that shield went down.

But she didn’t want this to be _quick._ She wanted this to be _satisfying_.

“ _Carolina? Who is that?_ ” the AI on her shoulder said. Carolina’s stance was wide and strong, hands outstretched as if she were physically holding the shield up herself.

There was a moment of hesitation before Carolina spoke again, “…she was a member of Charon’s private security force. The Resistance.”

“ _She what?!_ ”

“Uh, are we supposed to understand what the fuck that means or—?” the other aqua one said.

“…they were the people we fought. Back in Freelancer.”

“Okay, yeah, so, what the hell is she doing _here?_ ”

“I don’t _know_.”

“What do you _think?_ ” Girlie tossed a knife and caught it, cocked her head. “You have a failing AI, Carolina. That bubble isn’t going to hold forever and when it gives out? You don’t have cover. It’s only a matter of time and I’m _used_ to waiting.”

Carolina’s gaze broke from her for the first time since she arrived, head turning to the Epsilon AI. “Church… what is she talking about…?”

“How many years has it been since we last fought, Carolina? Seven, eight? That’s a _lifetime_ for an AI, even I know that.” Carolina tensed again and oh, it felt good to see her _shaken_. See her realise that she was cornered. That shield _would_ fall eventually, all Girlie had to do was wait. “Oh, and whilst you’re stuck here? A bunch of these guys are heading to handle your friends at Alpha whilst someone else goes ahead to that temple. So I’d use your last minutes _wisely_ , Carolina.”

A beat of heavy silence. Girlie watched, to see what Carolina would do.

Finally, she said, “…Church, connect me to the war room.”

“Smart choice.”

Girlie stood tossing her knife to a steady beat as Carolina debated with the generals about who was most in need of their limited reinforcements. Wasn’t really paying attention, didn’t even catch the result before Carolina fell quiet again and the temple was overtaken by that same heavy silence from minutes before.

Four rifles remained trained on the shield. The moment it fell, the three spares would be eliminated and Girlie would have Carolina _all_ to herself.

(Sharkface, every bone in his body broken. Snipes, their body riddled with holes. Sleeves, his neck snapped.)

Her heart pounded against her ribcage. Tunnel vision threatened to creep up on her. This was it. After all this fucking time, this was _it_. Someone was going to pay for what happened to her team.

(Demo, blown up and drowned. The Chain Twins, crushed and all but flattened. Boss… she’d never found out what happened to Boss.)

Mere minutes were nothing compared to the years she’d waited. As the power depleted, as the shield got closer and closer to falling and leaving them exposed, she stood patiently. Never took her eyes off of Carolina, the way her arms flexed as she tried to keep them up, the way her visor glinted with each tiny glance she made at her surroundings.

When they started to talk again, discussing their options, she wasn’t worried. Hell, she barely paid attention. They didn’t have a way out. Carolina was good but even she wasn’t _that_ good; no matter what they did, most of them wouldn’t make it out of this alive.

So she ignored it. Dismissed it.

Until, all at once, the shrill doctor yelled something about an aim-bot, the shield dropped and bullets started firing.

Three of the pirates had already fallen as she ducked behind a low wall, pressed flush against it, breathing frantic. A spattering of bullets imbedded themselves in the metal milliseconds later, but didn’t make it through. Shit, _shit_ —

What the fuck was that?!

“ _One hostile remaining_.”

 _Shit._ Shit shit shit—

There was a bright flash, blinding even with her back to it. “Oh, goodie, you’re alive! That function only works about half the time—that was a _bit_ of a coin toss.”

“ _Wow. Why would you tell us that?_ ”

“Besides, it didn’t even get them all! That lady’s still up there she just ducked behind a wall!”

Girlie swallowed the lump in her throat, tried to control her breathing. Grabbing her pistol she popped the mag and checked it, made sure it was loaded. This was going to be harder than she’d hoped.

“Get clear. Go on ahead and _get to the temple_ , help whoever Doyle sent. They can’t get hold of that sword,” Carolina said below her, as she snapped the slide back.

“What about you?”

“I can handle her, now go!”

With that simple order, Carolina isolated herself. That, at least, played into Girlie’s favour.

The sound of armoured boots and a Warthog faded into the distance soon enough and Girlie heard Carolina beneath her, her own steps against the temple’s metal floor. She must have been talking to that AI, but she heard nothing—guess it was all in her head.

 _Fuck_. She didn’t need this kind of disadvantage. She could take her—she _could_ take her—but this wasn’t what was supposed to happen. Fucking Freelancers and their fucking toys.

Carolina’s voice echoed from beneath her, “I don’t know what you’re doing here, but—”

The laugh that erupted surprised even her, dry and full of malice. “Oh like _hell_ you don’t know what I’m doing here.” Shuffling towards the edge of the wall, she peered around. Carolina hadn’t moved far and her rifle remained mag-locked to her back. “You’re a smart woman, Carolina. Take a fucking guess.”

“I—” She hesitated, so uncharacteristically unsure of herself. Now that she thought about it, she’d been acting _off_ ever since she came out of that portal thing in the centre. Yet that Grey woman must have gone inside but came out no worse for wear.

Not that it mattered. Her being out of it might even level the playing field.

"How about I just explain then, huh? Give you the whole goddamn speech.” Popping up over the top of the wall she squeezed the trigger, fired two hasty shots that Carolina dodged easily. Her head snapped up towards her. “You killed my fucking team, Carolina. Is that what you want to hear? I’m _here_ because you and your team killed my entire _fucking_ team. I’m _here_ because I’m the only one fucking _left._ ”

Her eyes flicked to the ground. Bit of a drop, didn’t know if her legs could take it, but she wasn’t going to take the damn stairs.

Fuck it.

Landing in a roll minimised the impact but _fuck_ the shooting pain up her spine took her breath and it took a moment for her legs to recover, for sensation and control to settle. Something hadn’t been right since the purge, like the connection had been damaged, but she _had_ to fight. So she pulled herself up to her feet and squared her stance, ignoring the odd tingle that ran down her legs. Grabbed her knives.

“I’m here,” she was right there, right there in front of her, within touching distance, after all these fucking years she was right there— “because _someone_ has to fucking pay, Carolina. First you, and then Agent Washington.”

“… _you have got to be fucking kidding me._ ”

With a low growl, Girlie lunged.

Carolina threw herself back, away from the wide sweep of her knife. Spun on her heel and came back at her with a high kick, narrowly missing her head as she ducked. Another, then another—the third connected with her chest, pushed her back.

Catching herself, Girlie grit her teeth.

Aim for the vulnerable areas. Get a knife in that open gut and even Carolina would go down.

Tucking her arms close to her chest she got in close with another spin and lashed out with another swipe that barely missed her midsection. Carolina dodged and feinted and somehow ended up behind her, but Girlie was quick to turn. Block a punch, take a kick, duck out the way of another.

Carolina’s style wasn’t _predictable_ but it had repeating elements that she knew well, that she’d visualised how to counter. Triple kicks were dodged, her fluid feints and spins defied. Didn’t give her the upper-hand but it gave her enough to keep up, to start pushing.

Carolina didn’t let up either. Every move she made was targeted, no doubt helped along by that AI of hers, and it wasn’t long before a well-placed slam of a foot made Girlie’s legs buckle.

Stumbling, she cursed.

“Epsilon, BioScan.”

“ _Cybernetic implant in her spine connected to her legs. Seems to be the only thing letting her walk, let alone fight. Fancy shit, too. Not cheap._ ”

“Luckily for me,” dragging herself upright, she let the connection settle, “Charon was _very_ dedicated to making their story believable. Fixed me up before getting me locked up. But hey,” she shrugged, tossed her knife and squared her stance, “they got me to you in the end.”

Another volley of strikes. Girlie kept her sights set on the vulnerable areas of her armour, waited for openings, but Carolina kept up her guard. Every slash at the exposed areas of her armour was blocked, turned back against her. She kept up the pressure and Girlie found herself pushed back, losing ground.

“They waited all this time to send you?” Carolina said, blocking a slash of her knife.

“ _What_?” Gritting her teeth, she pushed against the block. Knife scraping through the paint on her gauntlets. “No. _I_ waited, Charon never did _shit_ for me. This is for _me_ , not for them!”

“Then why are you working _for_ them?”

Girlie froze. What? This was— was all of this— Charon was—?

Carolina didn’t waste the opening. A kick slammed into her gut and she flew backwards, stumbled. The bright white of the portal cast light ahead of her, over Carolina. She hadn’t realised they were so close, that they’d backed up that far.

Her legs bucked, her footing slipped—

And she was falling.

Falling, wind rushing past her, a sensation all too familiar. Falling, waiting for the hard impact of concrete or water against her back. Falling, with her eyes clamped shut and her breath held on instinct.

But the impact never came.

One second she was falling and the next second she was stood firm on her feet in the middle of some open area. Everything around her had some weird… unreal, quality to it; blurred, almost, smeared. Something wasn’t right about this— this— wherever this portal had taken her.

Now how the _fuck_ did she get out of here?

“ _WHO… ARE… YOU?_ ”

Girlie grunted. “Fuck off, I’m not here for— whatever the hell this is,” she said, spinning on the spot as she looked for a way out. There was a way in, there had to be a way out. “Let me out of here! Goddammit she— fucking— _shit._ ”

That was when she heard the beeping.

Of a heart monitor. Flat-lining.

It sounded _exactly the same_.

Exactly the same, like it was torn directly from her memory of that horrible fucking day. Even her nightmares had never recreated the sound quite so vividly, so precisely. Hearing it then dragged her right back to that day, to the hospital. Made her want to cover her ears, to make the sound _stop_.

Spinning again she searched for the source of the sound (that fucking sound, the sound of one of her family dying—) despite internally kicking herself, despite the nausea that twisted her gut. For a moment she thought there was nothing, that it had come out of the air like that voice—

There was a hospital bed mere metres away from her when she stopped spinning.

Sharkface was laid there, the steady beat of his heart replaced by that long, piercing beep that burrowed its way deep into her skull. No one else, no doctors, no nothing. Just him and her.

He almost looked peaceful, without the frantic buzzing of doctors around him.

She remembered Boss yelling at the Doctors to do more. She remembered the days after, where they all talked in hushed, angry tones about how Charon hadn’t done enough. She remembered being angry at the Freelancers, the real root of her resentment.

But there was no one here but him and her.

Stepping towards the bed didn’t close the distance. It remained perpetually out of her reach. Nothing she did could get her closer, would let her help him. She didn’t even know why she was trying—he was already _dead_ this wasn’t _real_ —but she couldn’t just stand by and watch, not again.

So she ran harder, tried to break whatever illusion kept her back and finally, it almost seemed as if she was getting closer—

Behind her, there was the sound of a domed energy shield.

Turning on her heel, she knew what she’d find before she saw it.

Hexagonal tiles splattered with blood, a final glimpse of a red and black figure trying to duck out of the way of a ricocheting bullet. Deep, dark red staining the entire dome—so much blood for the one figure inside—before it fell. The distant thud of them hitting the ground. Falling to their knees, then flat on their face.

So, so far out of her reach. Up where they always were.

And unlike that day, there was no obvious source of the bullet, or the dome. No one to retaliate against.

It was the same when Sleeves hit the floor with a sickening crack, less than a metre away from her.

There was no one there. Just Sleeves on his knees, his head jerked unnaturally to the side, his helmet skidding away. Not Agent Maine, who she’d seen kill him all those years ago. Just Sleeves. Dead.

Demo— Demo was the worst. The room was dry, not a drop of water in sight, but he appeared above her as if he was floating. Sinking. Followed the sound of explosions and his scream, a splash. She couldn’t even tear her eyes away as he slowly sunk towards the floor, bleeding out. Red streaking the air, trailing behind him and dissipating in a non-existent current.

She’d never seen that. Not like she had the others.

Tears threatened to fall and she swallowed a thick lump in her throat. Fuck. _Fuck_. Why was it doing this, why was it making her see— see—

There wasn’t much to see of the twins. The crates came from nowhere and their bodies were hidden. But the sound, god the fucking _sound_ — it took all her strength not to throw up.

Gritting her teeth, Girlie tore her eyes away from the corpses of her friends and glared at the sky. “Stop it! Fucking— stop it! Why the fuck are you showing me all of this?! Fuck off! Let me out of here!”

Girlie all but screamed her throat raw, but there was still no response. If anything the silence seemed to grow heavier in the aftermath, as she stood surrounded by dead bodies with her throat aching.

Alone, again. Like so many times before.

And like so many times before, the silence gave her time to think.

Despite the horrifying things this place had shown her—her friends dying around her all over again, their bodies strewn around her discarded—she felt… a level of fear beneath it all, an undercurrent of constant, consuming fear that wasn’t aimed at the horrors. Her nightmares had been filled with the bodies of her friends for years, that wasn’t anything _new_.

But in her nightmares there was always someone to blame.

The answer had always been obvious. The Freelancers had murdered her family and left her for dead. That was what had gotten her by for _years_.

A clear target for her anger. A clear target to blame.

There was no one here to blame and that? _That_ was what scared her. Not the bodies, not the gore, not the scenes she’d relived a thousand times. No.

Gnawing away in the back of her mind was a single seed of doubt, planted when Carolina claimed that all of this shit she was doing now was under _Charon’s_ orders. Under the orders of the same people that had put her in this situation in the first place. The people who’d let her take the fall for their shit and let her rot in prison. The people who’d sent her teams to their deaths and—

“ _Fuck!_ ” Her helmet hit the floor with a sharp bang and she dragged her hands through her hair.

Who the fuck was to blame? The Freelancers had killed them but Charon had sent them to do their dirty work but the Freelancers had— but Agent Carolina, Agent Maine, Agent Washington— but _Charon_ , the Chairman—

Girlie fell to her knees and sobbed.

The next thing she knew she was outside the portal, the muggy air of the jungle against her face and the bright sunlight making her eyes sting. Messages pinged off inside her helmet where it lay at her feet, no doubt Felix or somebody asking where the fuck she was.

Without even glancing at them, she slumped back against the nearest surface and curled up into a ball.

Both her body and her conviction shaking.

 

“What the _hell_ happened out there, Girlie?! You had one job! _One_ easy little job, we gave you backup and everything, but here you are, whilst Agent Carolina runs around very much _alive_. Not even injured!”

Girlie gritted her teeth. Felix paced around in front of her, gesticulating wildly. He’d barely finished with his display of repeatedly slamming that damn sword hilt against every surface he could find trying to get it to work. Even after she’d made it very clear that the damn Sangheili AI had said the swords wouldn’t work for anyone but their initial claimant.

He was absolutely _insufferable_ and she wanted nothing more than to turn around and walk away. But doing that wouldn’t end well for her, so she stood still and glared at him behind her visor.

“You didn’t tell me that they had a gun run by a damn AI. It auto-targeted all of my backup and almost shot me. After that I did what I could but like I said, she got the upper-hand and threw me into the portal you both conveniently forgot to mention,” she said, hardly suppressing the disdain in her voice. Felix huffed, finally stopped his pacing to lean against a crate.

“Did you encounter anything within the portal?” Locus asked, monotone as— no, actually, their voice seemed to waver. Barely enough to be noticeable, but definitely there.

“No.” Like hell she was telling them what happened in there. “Threw me out what felt like a couple seconds later but it must have been longer, because Carolina was gone and my helmet was going mad with comm. notifications about me fucking up.”

“Right, yeah, okay, how about this: why the hell didn’t you mention this ever so tiny detail about the sword the _first_ time you contacted us about the temple, hm? How about that?” Felix said, gesticulating wildly.

God she could punch him right in his snarky little— “I didn’t exactly have _time_. The whole idea was that you got to it _first_. You not being fast enough? That’s not on me.”

“Why you little—”

Felix jerked forward. Girlie’s hands twitched towards her knives and—

Locus’ arm blocked Felix before he moved more than a step.

“No violence between partners.”

Felix glowered at them with a simple tilt of his helmet. “She’s not a partner, she’s an _idiot._ And thanks to her, we’ve got a key that does _nothing_ until the General is dead!”

“Then just go and kill the General,” Girlie said, shrugging. Really, didn’t they have to do that _anyway?_

“The grown-ups are talking, blondie.”

 _Ohhh_ she fucking hated him.

“Quiet! We have the advantage and we have a plan. So quit moaning, and do your job.” Their gaze shifted from Felix to Girlie. “ _Both_ of you.”

With as much sarcasm as she could muster, Girlie said, “You’re the boss,” before turning on her heel and walking away. One more minute in that room and she’d be throwing a knife at Felix’s head and no matter how good her aim was, that wouldn’t end in her favour.

Dragging herself back to her cell, which she now had all to herself, she felt that seed of doubt in the back of her mind begging for her attention. It wormed its way into her thoughts as she stripped off her armour and started to do her exercises—something that had always chased away unwanted thoughts before. She needed to test the connection, anyway.

For a little while it worked. Focused on how her legs were working—whether there was a delay between what she wanted to do and it happening or a lack of proper sensation—she was able to keep all of her attention on her work out. There was definitely something off, but it wasn’t enough to stop her walking or fighting. All she could do was try to adapt in the time she had to waste, she’d get the damage fixed after this was all over.

If she made it out of this.

She ran through her drills two more times than necessary just to keep herself distracted but eventually the thoughts started to creep their way in. Realising there was no point fighting the inevitable, she pulled herself up onto her bed, laid down face-first and made a frustrated noise into her pillow.

This was the last thing she needed.

This was meant to be her chance to get revenge. Kill Carolina, kill Washington— _end them_ , eradicate the last of the Freelancers and make sure they knew who’d killed them and _why_. They’d killed her family. Her anger towards the Freelancers was the only thing that had kept her going for _years_.

But Carolina just had to plant that seed of doubt, didn’t she?

She didn’t know why she’d never asked who she was working for. Maybe a part of her, somewhere subconscious, had spotted all the signs of Charon’s work—the fancy weaponry, the alien shit, the big money. Maybe that part of her knew she’d be conflicted, if she knew for sure.

All those years ago she’d latched onto the Freelancers because Charon was out of reach. _They_ were funding her recovery, _they_ were in charge of her future, _they_ were going to let her go after the Freelancers.

And _fuck_ , it wasn’t as if the Freelancers were _innocent_. No, no, they were part of this. Her anger at them hadn’t been _wrong_ , it couldn’t have been; she saw them kill her family, she saw what happened to Sharkface, she saw it _all_.

But did that mean they were to blame for what had happened?

Or was this all bigger than that? Bigger than her, or them?

Fuck. _Fuck._ Carolina just _had_ to say something, didn’t she? One sentence and she’d planted the thought that started her world crumbling down around her for the second time. One sentence and she felt like she was back on page one.

Years of her life had been based around that anger.

She didn’t know what she was supposed to do if that started to change.

 

By the time they called her again, she’d had almost twenty-four hours for her mind to run in circles. It was a relief when they told her that they were preparing for a big push into the city, that she’d have another shot at the Freelancers soon.

Maybe with a mission to focus on, she’d be able to chase away the doubt. Maybe when she saw one of the Freelancers again, she’d be filled with the rage she needed to end this.

Maybe.

She hoped so.

It would be so much easier if she was.

Her mission was the same: take out the Freelancers, plural this time. Keep them occupied so they couldn’t get between the pirates and the General, if nothing else—a qualifier so _helpfully_ added by Felix. There would be no backup this time but she wouldn’t have taken it if she’d been offered it. She was doing this alone or not at all.

The nagging voice in the back of her mind—that sounded suspiciously like Boss—told her it would be the latter. So she told it to shut the fuck up.

The occupants of Chorus had made one grave mistake, she thought as she landed on the asphalt. Containing everything in one area of the city made sense in theory but in practice, it made it much too easy to eliminate huge numbers of people in a short amount of time. She remembered learning that the hard way back in the early days of her cell; it was easy to lose a lot of people that way.

Shaking the thought from her head, she started her hunt for the Freelancers. Now wasn’t the time to feel sympathetic to the locals.

It didn’t take long to find them.

“… _wind all over the place._ ”

“Well, at least they keep us off the streets and out of trouble.”

Girlie would have laughed when they came around the corner, only to be face to face with her. Would have, if she’d felt like she was supposed to feel.

Agent Carolina and Agent Washington stood in front of her, the last remaining Freelancers that she had been so, _so_ determined to kill a mere day before. Only now the rage that filled her chest was— _different_ , weaker.

Unsure.

It felt almost performative to force a laugh and rest a hand on her hip. “Out of trouble, huh? You do know these tunnels aren’t sealed, right?”

Washington and a woman she didn’t recognise raised their weapons, but Carolina held out an arm.

Her gut twisted.

“We don’t have time for this,” Washington said, helmet tilting just barely towards Carolina. A side-glance. “Carolina…”

“I’m the one she wants,” Carolina said, though something in the words felt deeper. Like she had some other motivation. Girlie didn’t have time to analyse that, before she set her sights on her. “If I stay, will you let them go?”

One of them would be easier to fight than two.

“Fine, whatever.” She had no commitment to whatever the fuck was going on here anyway. So what if Washington and the other woman screwed up the mercenaries’— _Charon’s_ —plans? “But once I’m done with you? Don’t think I won’t be going after Washington, too.”

Carolina didn’t acknowledge the threat. “Kimball, Wash— _go_.”

“You sure you’ll be alright?” Kimball asked, taking a step forward. Carolina didn’t look back.

“Yeah. I’m sure. Now _go_.”

With that, they took off down one of the other paths and left them alone.

Silence filled the tunnel. Carolina and Girlie stood still, staring each other down.

It was like Carolina was _hesitating_. The way she’d stopped Washington and Kimball from ending her then and there, the way she stood just… looking at her. It was hesitation.

Why would she hesitate?

She was here to _kill_ her why— why would she—

Gritting her teeth, she grabbed her knives. That was it, that was enough. She was finishing this, _now._ Damn her for making her doubt and _damn_ her for hesitating and just _damn her!_

“Fuck you,” she spat, as she lunged.

Carolina blocked her, gauntlets crossed and shielding her from the clumsy first slash of her knife. Throwing her back with a sharp push she created distance, wound up a spinning kick and aimed right at her head. Ducked, spun and lashed out with a blade at her legs—but Carolina saw it coming and jumped, nailing her in the visor with her foot.

Pain shot up her back as she landed hard, but she rolled over and jumped to her feet. Tossing her knife to adjust her hold she went back for another swipe, but Carolina was quick and she was clumsy in her frustration. Her legs were lagging behind. Her mind was swimming with conflicting thoughts.

Only one thing came through clear: she wanted this to be _over_ , one way or another this hand to _end_.

Strike after strike, Carolina blocked her. Every hit in return was retaliation, never an initiation. Girlie was kept at bay with bare minimum force and fuck that made it _worse_ , made her fight _harder_ , made her make more mistakes until—

A disarming strike. Her knife clattered to the floor. A foot in her gut threw her back and away.

Barely catching herself, landing on her knees, she shuddered as a spark ran down her legs. An attempt to put pressure on one nearly sent her sprawling to the ground. Shit. Shit shit _shit_ — there was sensation, but she couldn’t get up, she _couldn’t get up._ She was defenceless, disarmed and vulnerable—

And yet Carolina just stood there. Looking at her.

“Why— why won’t you just _fight_ me? Why won’t you just fight _back_?!” she snapped, jerking her arm out. It unbalanced her and she caught herself, palm against the asphalt. “I’m trying to _kill you_ , fight _back_ for fuck’s sa—”

“I’m sorry.”

The words hit like a punch in the gut.

“…what?”

“I’m sorry. For what we did to you… to your friends.” Carolina’s voice was calm and even as she stood there, mere feet away but with her stance relaxed and unthreatening. “You were on one side of the fight and we were on the other. We thought we were the good guys. I’m _sorry_.”

“…wha-what?” Girlie choked on the word. Her throat felt tight. No, not again. Not again. She couldn’t _do_ this. This wasn’t how— “You— shut up. Shut _up_. You can’t do this again, I won’t— sorry doesn’t bring them _back_.”

“I know,” Carolina said, with the weight of a realisation all of her own. Her visor was tilted away from her, never meeting hers. “But I don’t _want_ to fight you. I don’t want to kill you. Enough people have died for Charon and for Freelancer. I won’t add to that if I don’t have to.”

“But— but—”

This wasn’t how things were supposed to be, this wasn’t how it was supposed to _go._ Carolina was meant to fight back, she was meant to— she was meant to— what was she meant to do? Who was she meant to be? A monster? One of the shameless murderers that she’d spent years building the Freelancers up to be?

Years of aiming all of her anger at the Freelancers, at Carolina. Years of blaming them and them alone for what had happened to her family. _Years_ — and yet in the space of a couple of days, it had all come toppling down around her.

“…who the hell am— am I supposed to blame if not _you?_ ” Her voice strained and she choked back a sob, crumpling in on herself as her shoulders started to shake. “Who— I don’t know— I don’t _know_.”

All of the fight faded away and her frustration turned inwards. Hot tears rolled over her cheeks.

Carolina crouched in front of her, offered a hand. “Stand down. Come with me. You don’t need to trust me, but let me help you.”

Girlie swallowed the lump in her throat. She didn’t want to die. She’d never _wanted_ to die.

Her team wouldn’t want her to die.

She took the hand.

Carolina pulled her arm up around her shoulders and wrapped an arm around her waist, lifted her to her feet. Even with the support it was difficult to stay steady, but Carolina kept her up.

“Epsilon—”

“ _I got you covered C. There’s a Warthog not far, I’m marking it on your HUD._ ”

“Alright.” Securing her hold on Girlie’s waist, she turned towards one of the other tunnels. “Think you can walk a hundred metres with me?”

“I’ll manage,” Girlie said, gripping her shoulder tight. Didn’t look at her. Couldn’t look at her.

Carolina took a step and she matched it. It was slower going than she’d have liked, but they started to move. Girlie kept her eyes on the floor, watched her own feet as they scuffed against the asphalt, tripping and stumbling. Every few steps she almost fell flat on her face and Carolina had to drag her back upright.

She couldn’t believe she was letting herself be seen like this by her.

Finally they reached the Warthog and Carolina grabbed her under her legs, lifted her into the seat. Girlie almost protested, but she knew that she’d never have managed it on her own, not in her state.

“Wash, we’re on our way to you.”

“We’re _on our way?”_

“That’s what I said.” Clambering into the driver’s seat, she started it up. “The uh—” a moment’s hesitation, a glance at Girlie, “…what do I call you?”

“…Girlie. You call me Girlie.”

She nodded. “Girlie is coming too.”

“ _…well alright then. I was just about to contact you, Doyle’s riding to the reactor and we need to be at the LZ quick._ ”

“Doyle?”

The engine revved and the Warthog reversed, turning to drive down another tunnel. Girlie pulled off her helmet and dropped her head back over the seat, the radio conversation nothing more than a faint murmur in the background.

Nothing ever went like she expected, did it?


	4. Unexpected

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> At the time of posting this hasn’t had my usual edits because it’s late and I want to get it up, but I’ll likely go through and edit it later. But here we go, final chapter!

The next few hours went by in a blur.

Girlie could do little but watch from the Warthog seat and then the Pelican as everything fell apart for the Chorusans. The General that owned the sword had been cornered and the reactor they were planning to set off with time to spare had been damaged. Destroying it manually was their only hope at taking out enough of Charon’s forces to even the field, but now the General would die.

Giving Felix the sword and the means to wipe out the entire planet with the turn of a key.

The idea she’d given them. The information _she’d_ passed on.

Something twisted in her gut. A deep sense of guilt that she didn’t have the energy to process, not on top of everything that had happened with Carolina.

She could barely even look at her. Every time she did she felt sick in a way she couldn’t quite describe; it wasn’t that hatred she’d grown so used to but it wasn’t anything pleasant. Carolina had offered her _mercy_ , she’d offered her a hand and she’d helped her come out of this with another chance. What was she supposed to do with that information?

In those few minutes on the ground in Armonia, before the city blew, she saw a side of Carolina she’d never acknowledged could even exist. Far past the one-dimensional ideas she’d built up of her and the other Freelancers, she saw her comforting Kimball and leading her to safety. She saw her scan the bay and check on everyone inside, even her. Saw her climb onto the roof of the Pelican armed with nothing but her armour, an AI and a bubble shield to deflect a _nuclear blast_.

The Pelican survived. Carolina stumbled back into the bay, collapsed against Washington. Everyone fell into an uneasy, anxious silence. Radio calls from other survivors came in and Kimball pulled herself together long enough to organise everyone, direct people to land in safe locations around the planet.

Their ship finally landed in a jungle canyon, connected to a crashed ship. People scrambled out as soon as the bay door touched the ground, greeted by the blue-toned soldiers she’d seen at the temple and a few others. The canyon was filled with Choursan soldiers in both types of armour, huddled in small groups.

This was what passed for a safe location. An open canyon in the middle of nowhere, isolated but unsecured.

Fuck. These people were on their last legs.

Girlie had to pull herself from her seat and drag herself to the edge of the bay. Sitting at the top of the ramp she watched everything go by. Teenagers in armour, some crying whilst others just stared at the ground. Medics checking over the injured. People coming and going from the wreckage.

No one came to her and she didn’t expect them to. Carolina had vanished with her team and Girlie sat alone, kitted out in Pirate armour. Those few who noticed her gave her dirty looks and it wasn’t like she could blame them.

This was partially her fault, after all. Not that they knew the extent of how, but…

Sighing, she lay back and covered her face with her arm.

Sure, she’d survived. But what was she supposed to do now?

Felt like she’d asked herself that question a lot in the past few years.

Time ticked by and Girlie was left there undisturbed. Silence usually welcomed spiralling thoughts and anger, but… not today. For once, she didn’t even _think_. Instead she just lay there, listening to the white noise of the jungle and the distance chatter of the Chorusans, until she heard shouting from somewhere else in the canyon. Shouting that echoed inside her helmet where it lay at her side.

Pulling her helmet back on, she heard General Kimball’s voice. A speech, broadcasting to all local channels and no doubt more. A speech about the Civil War here on Chorus and about war as a whole, what it does to you. A speech about fighting back and surviving. Rousing and emotional and coming from a place so genuine that she could feel it in the woman’s voice.

And as the cheers filled the canyon, as bullets sprayed into the air, Girlie found some of her words had struck a cord in her. The speech wasn’t for her, wasn’t for the ex-Insurrectionist who’d long since betrayed all of her principles or for the woman who’d made their imminent demise possible, but, despite that…

_When you spend every day fighting a war, you learn to demonize your attackers. To you they're evil, they're sub-human. Because if they weren't, then what would that make you?_

With a quiet laugh, Girlie let her head fall back. Yeah, what would that make you?

Carolina reappeared not long after Kimball’s speech had ended. Girlie saw her coming, heading from the direction Kimball’s speech had come from. No helmet, her face laid bare for all the world to see.

She looked… as tired as Girlie felt, she realised with another laugh. Bags under her eyes and scars on her face, signs of stress in the corners of her features and cropped scarlet hair tousled by her helmet. Girlie couldn’t remember the last time she’d looked in the mirror but she figured if she had the chance, she wouldn’t look much better.

The years hadn’t been kind to either of them.

“Girlie,” she said, standing at the foot of the ramp. “Can we talk?”

“…yeah, sure. Whatever.” Figuring it was only fair, she unsealed her own helmet and set it down beside her. “Not like I’m going anywhere. Literally, I can’t fucking get up.”

“We can have Grey examine you.” Carolina walked up the ramp and sat a few feet away, not too close. Girlie couldn’t tell if that was for her comfort or her own. “See if there’s anything she can do, about your legs.”

“Doubt you have facilities for surgery here,” Girlie said, nodding at the canyon. “That’s all that’ll fix it. Can tell you that right now.”

“I don’t know. Grey’s…” she trailed off, trying to place a word, but eventually shook her head, “…Grey. She ran maintenance on my arm in the middle of nowhere and it held up just fine.” When Girlie’s head snapped to her in confusion, Carolina peeled off her glove and waved a set of robotic fingers at her. “Prosthesis.”

“Oh, right. Guess I’m not the only cyborg around here.”

Carolina slipped her glove back on. “Not by a longshot.”

Awkward silence overcame them and they sat there, neither looking at the other, for at least a minute. Carolina idly scratched at a line in the metal floor. Girlie stared at her feet.

“…I meant what I said, in Armonia,” Carolina said, finally. “I’m sorry. We were told you were the enemy. We— _I_ was doing what I believed had to be done. It doesn’t change what happened and it doesn’t excuse it, but it’s the truth.”

“Yeah, well— you’re fucking right, it doesn’t excuse shit,” Girlie said, still not lifting her gaze. “But— ugh, I don’t know. I don’t _know_. You don’t get— look, I’ve spent fucking _years_ blaming you, Carolina. _Years_. Wanting to kill you Freelancers was the _only_ motivation I had! That’s not— fucking— _ugh_.”

Dropping her head into her hands, she cursed under her breath. This was uncomfortable. Sitting next to the woman she’d hated for years—hell, that she might _still_ hate, she didn’t fucking _know_ —was fucking _uncomfortable_ , talking to her was even worse. She’d never talked about this with anyone, how was she supposed to talk about it with her?

“You may not believe it, but I… get it,” Carolina said. Girlie dared a glance out of the corner of her eye—she looked uncomfortable, too, still scratching at that indent in the floor. “I spent years hunting down the person to blame for what happened at Freelancer. Finding him consumed my life. I was in a bad place and I made decisions I’m not proud of.”

Girlie averted her gaze again. Guess that did sound rather her past few years.

“Then I found him and— I couldn’t do it.” The scratching stopped. “The moment I had spent so long building up to and I couldn’t do it. I had to make the decision to move forward and to try and do better. Still, I’ve made choices I wouldn’t make again. Things have happened to make it more difficult. It’s… a process.”

When Girlie finally looked at her, she was biting her lip. Must have been doing so for a while; it had split. “ _Why_ are you telling me all of this?”

“Because I think you need to hear it,” Carolina said, meeting her eye for the briefest of moments. “There’s a way forward, Girlie. Take it from me, because I’ve been there. I _am_ there.”

…Carolina was a different woman than she’d expected her to be.

She didn’t know what to say, not at first, but she knew she should say _something_. Silence hung over them for what felt like the millionth time, dense and unsettled, until Carolina sighed and stood up. Tucked her helmet under her arm and went to leave. Took three steps down the ramp and—

“I saw them, when you knocked me into that portal. My team,” Girlie said, before she could change her mind. Carolina stopped still. “I saw them die. All over again. Except— except the thing was, that wasn’t the thing that scared me. What fucking scared me was I couldn’t find anyone to blame. It was just me, and my dead friends. No one to aim my anger at. _That_ was the worst part.”

“Because there had to be a clear cause for all of this. If there wasn’t, what did that mean for you?”

Girlie didn’t answer, but she figured that itself was answer enough. Guess Carolina did understand.

“…pushing you into the portal was the quickest way to finish the fight. I wasn’t sure if it would still… run the test,” Carolina said. Turning back to her, she sighed. “I’m sorry.”

Girlie shook her head. “Nah, look, if I hadn’t gone into that thing? No way in hell I’d be here right now. You mentioning Charon planted the seed of doubt but it fucking bloomed in that place. I probably would’ve kept fighting you until you had to kill me without that.” With a sigh of her own, she rubbed her face. “Fell for the same bullshit twice. Charon’s good, I’ll give them that. I don’t— this is— a lot, you know? Like my whole world’s been torn out from under me. I don’t know how to feel about any of this. I don’t even know what I’m gonna do now.”

“Well, helping us would be a good start.” Pausing, she chewed her lip for a moment and then smiled faintly. “After that, I happen to know a group that have a habit of taking in people with nowhere else to go.”

“Huh.” Didn’t know how she felt about that just now, but… “Uh, one thing at a time. I _did_ kinda give the assholes the to genocide, _literally_ , so yeah, sure, helping. Uh— one problem, though.”

Carolina titled her head.

“I can’t fucking _walk_.”

“Oh, right. That’s a problem.”

“No shit,” Girlie said with a snort of laughter. “Like I said, genius or not there’s no way I’m having surgery done in a canyon in bumfuck nowhere. And you _really_ dealt the final blow with that kick of yours.”

Carolina was quiet for a moment, though she still moved as if she were mid-conversation. Must have been talking to Epsilon internally again. Girlie flicked her eyes around the canyon, passing the time.

“Think you could do your thing from the seat of a Warthog?” she said, maybe a minute later. “With the right weapon?”

“Yeah, sure, guess so,” Girlie said with a shrug. Then, raising a brow, “What _exactly_ are you guys planning, anyway?”

Carolina’s lips twitched into a slight smirk. “ _Well_ …”

 

The plan, as it turned out, was ever so slightly crazy—but apparently that’s just how these guys worked, so who was she to question it? Wasn’t like she had any better ideas and after what she’d done, the least she could do was go along with their batshit plan and help to make sure it worked.

The Freelancers were already at the Purge Temple by the time they arrived at the Comm. Temple for their final assault. Girlie provided them as much extra intel as she can before they left, even if she still felt awkward as hell talking to their of them. They’d been shocked by the information that the Counselor was up on the _Tartarus_ —so yeah, her hunch was right—but there was no time to dwell on it let alone confront him. They had to be satisfied with the fact their plan would kill him, quite spectacularly in fact. Ship crashes were a hell of a way to go.

(God, what the _fuck_ was this plan.)

Girlie was driven to the temple by some of Carolina’s colourful companions—the red coloured ones, or well, warm coloured ones (seriously, one of them was orange? How did these colour schemes work?). The Orange one was actually a hell of a driver, she later found out, but the drive there was spent listening to the two Reds in the Warthog with her bickering. Kinda amusing, really, it was hard not to crack a bit of a smile and she had to cough to hide a laugh at one particular quip. It was a dynamic she hadn’t experienced in a long time.

“Hey, lady—” the orange one—Grif, she thought they called him— said as the fight finally kicked off, “—do me a favour and like, be careful firing that thing. We only got the one jeep.”

“Girlie,” Girlie corrected, casually.

She could practically hear the confused squint. “What?”

“My name’s Girlie, not lady.”

“Same difference, isn’t it?”

“…touché, I’ll _almost_ give you that, but no.” Shaking her head, she securely balanced the alien gun on the edge of the Warthog. “And don’t worry about it, I’m not gonna shoot the damn jeep.” Pause. “How many times has—?”

“You don’t even wanna know.”

“—alright then. You’re— an interesting bunch.”

“Yeah, we get that a lot,” Grif said, shrugging. That didn’t surprise her at all.

With the Pirates so severely undermanned after they turned Armonia into a nuke the fight was easy. Grif drove, his boyfriend and Girlie shot the Pirates’ vehicles and anyone who got too close, respectively, and the Chorusans with their alien weapons made mincemeat of the remaining attackers—or well, dust. Mostly dust.

Honestly? It was almost _fun_. Grif was a damn good driver and the alien gun felt powerful in her hands. She hadn’t seen action like this in years and hey, the fact she was wrecking a bunch of Charon’s men in the name of a planet that was one short step from Insurrectionist? That certainly sweetened the deal.

They were inside the tower within an hour, at the most. Not long after that, the Freelancers reappeared. Armour looking a little scuffed in places, but okay. Clearly, the plan had worked. All that was left to do was for them to go broadcast their message and expose Charon; they’d have to keep fighting the stragglers in the meantime, but that was easy enough.

Until the Mantis appeared. That complicated things, just a bit.

Girlie found herself sitting in a Warthog being used as a blockade at the temple entrance, helping Kimball and some of the other Chorusan soldiers hold the position whilst the colourful assholes did their thing and Carolina did hers.

…she watched Carolina tear that Mantis apart with her bare hands and hey, look, she’d be lying if she said that wasn’t _attractive as hell_. Carolina was a complicated mess of emotions in her head—the woman she hated for years but also the first person to ever just _talk_ to her about what had happened—but she didn’t need to untangle it to know how hot that was.

But then more Mantises dropped, more people died, and a call came in that her team was cornered by a bunch of Charon goons with no guarantee that they could get to them in time.

So she watched Carolina tear onto the nearest Pelican, Washington not far behind. Watched her as they returned, looking frantic as she helped take the injured to where they needed to be. Watched her scramble to make sure that her team was all _okay_ , whilst clearly knotted tight with distress herself. Watched her take care of her team, saw that other dimension of her that she’d never imagined could exist mere days ago.

Everything had changed and she still had no idea where she stood.

But dammit, she was going to figure it out this time.

She had to.

 

Over the following days Carolina was all but completely absent from anywhere that wasn’t either the makeshift training hall or the equally makeshift hospital. People were slowly starting to move back towards some of Chorus’ other old population centres but the process was slow and it wasn’t worth moving the patients before a real hospital was set up. Various members of Carolina’s team were still under observation, most notably the other aqua one—Tucker?—who’d been running the suit that saved them.

(Girlie wondered how seeing that suit, that familiar domed helmet and white armour, had felt for Carolina. If it had given _her_ pause, she couldn’t imagine what it must have been like for Carolina.)

If she was honest, Girlie had been keeping her distance anyway. Her feelings about Carolina were still a tangled mess; some days she felt that residual rage, whilst others she _wanted_ to talk to her and hear what she had to say. Things were too messy right now for both of them to expend anymore energy discussing their past; the present was much more important.

So Girlie spent most of her time doing odd jobs around the canyon, like helping out with moving things onto transport Warthogs. They’d managed to dig a wheelchair for her from somewhere, giving her the freedom of movement she needed. Days flew by with little issue, with the most dramatic thing that happened being the time a Warthog started driving before they were done and everything fell out. Girlie may not have known anyone there on Chorus, and people were hesitant to talk to one of the ex-Pirates, but helping out had started to build a few bridges.

Things were okay. Her life had more purpose in those few days than it had felt like it had had in years. Felt almost like getting back to her roots, helping out this backwater colony where there were already whispers of not wanting to re-join the UEG. How many years had it been now since they packed up the cell and joined the UNSC? How long had she been doing their dirty work for them, because they weren’t given a choice in the matter? How long had it been since she really worked to help the people the UNSC was fucking over?

Too long, she decided, as she helped some kid that couldn’t be older than sixteen move another crate. Too fucking long.

It had been almost a week when she saw Carolina sitting alone in the rudimentary mess hall, alone. The few times she’d seen her in the week prior she’d been almost constantly flanked by Washington, almost fused at the hip, but he was nowhere to be seen. Carolina looked half-dead and was mindlessly scrolling on her data-pad, cheek leant heavily into the palm of her other hand.

Girlie hesitated in the doorway, watching her for longer than she perhaps should have. She was worrying that bottom lip of hers again, though not hard enough to split it. Bright green eyes flicked up and down her screen without really looking. The bags under her eyes had only gotten darker.

Fuck it.

Wheeling over to the old coffee machine she made two cups, one made just how she liked it—a normal amount of milk and a _shit_ ton of sugar—the other black, then stuffed a bunch of sugar packets and creamers into an empty cup. Making a girl shitty coffee she couldn’t drink wouldn’t be a good first impression, better to let her modify it herself.

Then, with a deep breath, she approached the table.

“Hey, uh— you look like you might need this,” she said, holding up the black coffee. Carolina raised her head, looking momentarily surprised, but then exhaled with a faint laugh.

“I don’t know if I should be insulted or grateful,” she said, as she took the cup. Girlie manoeuvred so she could pull herself up close to the table and set down the cup of extras. Carolina considered them for a moment, before shaking her head and taking a gulp of the unmodified coffee.

“You’ve had a tough— well I was gonna say week, but few years might be more accurate. Point is, you’re allowed to look as shitty as you feel,” Girlie said with a shrug, sipping her own. After a moment’s hesitation, she added, “…they’ll be okay. It’s not my place to say a thing, course, but— they’ll be okay. They seem like stubborn enough assholes.”

Carolina didn’t respond at first, but she did offer her a tired smile before taking another long swig. Her eyes slid shut as she let the warmth fill her and she breathed out a sigh. “I never told you what I saw in the portal, did I?”

A little taken aback, Girlie set down her cup.

“Nah, I don’t… think we were on those kind of terms then. I mean, I told you because I was making a point, y’know?” She shrugged. “Didn’t think we were on those terms now. Y’know, seeing as I spent days trying to kill you.”

“I saw almost the same thing you saw. I had to watch my families, die.”

“…oh, shit.”

“That and— what happened to Epsilon,” she bit her lip a little harder, threatened to burst it, “has me a little more concerned than maybe I should be about a few broken bones and a couple bullet wounds.”

“That Santa guy—” she couldn’t believe she was actually calling that thing Santa, “—sure likes that trope, huh? What an asshole.” Carolina cracked a smile. Girlie called that a win. “Look I don’t know the whole story here but if those guys have survived everything I’ve heard about lately, they’ll come out of this no worse for wear.” Then, added quickly, “Physically.”

They’d lost one of their own. Girlie knew first-hand how badly that could hit a team.

“Physically,” Carolina said sombrely. They both sat nursing their coffee for a few minutes of silence that wasn’t quite comfortable but wasn’t quite awkward, before she spoke again. “You know, you’re not so bad, when you’re not trying to kill me.”

Girlie glanced up at her and found her smiling again, still tired but seemingly genuine.

“…yeah. Yeah you’re not so bad either. When you’re not trying to kill me.”

Carolina chuckled and Girlie cracked a smile of her own, shaking her head as she reached for another packet of sugar. That started an entire discussion about their respective abominations of the coffee kind, Carolina finding her heavily sweetened milky mixture unbearable whilst Girlie could never stomach coffee as raw as Carolina’s. It was kinda silly, really, but it kept their minds from wandering towards anything more depressing.

That conversation was the start of a very tentative, but growing, friendship. Things were still complicated; Girlie had years of anger to unpack but she was more than willing to work at it, to get away from the ghosts that had haunted her for years. Carolina wasn’t the woman she’d built her up to be, she could never have been that; that woman was one-dimensional, cruel and without remorse, none of which could ever describe the woman she’d come to know.

She was complex and complicated, filled with so much remorse that it seemed to eat away at her constantly, but more than that she was absolutely and unshakably devoted to the people she cared about. She always seemed like she had something to prove, like she couldn’t stop. Her laughter was rare but bright and shameless when it came. Her jokes were dry and almost always perfectly timed—almost. On a good day there was an energy that radiated from her that felt absolutely unique to her.

Girlie saw more and more of those things as time went by, as her team left hospital and Chorus was gifted aid, as everything started to move forward. They didn’t talk much during the days, where Carolina would be working with Washington and Kimball whilst Girlie worked odd jobs around the foundations of New Armonia—a repurposed population centre, being slowly expanded. But after a long day, Girlie found it refreshing to slump against a wall somewhere with Carolina and just… talk.

About the Reds, who she’d slowly started to fall into place with. About the Reds and Blues in general, their ridiculous antics. About their individual work around New Armonia. And, when their heads were clearer and most of the tension had faded, the past.

“It’s… difficult, talking to Wash about what happened,” Carolina said, one day, after a couple of drinks had left them both pliable for heavy talk. After she’d told Girlie about her side of the final years of the Project. “I’m trying— _we’re_ trying—but… I suppose a level of detachment helps. No, detachment probably isn’t the right word…”

Girlie chuckled, elbowed her. “Yeah I wouldn’t call talking to one of the people you nearly killed ‘detachment’. But I get what you’re saying.”

“Funny how some years can be some of the best but also the _worst_ of your life.” Carolina sighed, dropped her head back against the wall. A smile tugged at the corners of her lips and she spoke with amusement in her voice, “Have I told you about the time Maine put York’s helmet on top of one of the ceiling beams?”

“Nope.”

“Maine was the tallest, by a huge margin. No one else could reach those beams without climbing something. York tried all sorts of things to get up there but eventually he had to promise Maine his desserts for a week to get them to retrieve it.”

“Wow. What did he do to earn _that_ contempt?”

“You know, I can’t remember. Probably some ill-advised joke.”

“Sounds like the kind of thing the Chain twins would’ve done for fun,” Girlie said, her head dropping against Carolina’s shoulder without thinking. “Always up to shit, those two. You know they used to call you guys by the wrong designations and even colours on purpose _all the time?_ Made it real hard to keep track of who they were actually talking about.”

Carolina laughed, the kind of full on laughter Girlie had only ever been able to pry out of her when a good day and some alcohol had helped her relax, the kind that had started hitting Girlie right in the chest.

She didn’t know when the vague attraction she had towards Carolina as a fighter—as started by her _ripping apart a Mantis_ —had become more than that and she almost didn’t want to know. The shift from hatred, to confliction, to friendship to— to— whatever _this_ was, was _confusing_ and had happened over the space of such a short time that she swore it had given her whiplash.

At first she’d put it down to her lack of human contact over the past few years but when her spending time with the Reds had gotten more frequent and those feelings towards Carolina had continued to grow, didn’t know what to think.

And now her head was on Carolina’s shoulder and she was laughing at a dumb story she’d told and look, there was only so much a girl could handle.

Carolina had given her a second chance—given her a new damn _life_ by being willing to offer her that.

Despite their history, they were different people than they were all those years ago. So much had happened and Girlie was surprised by how much of their experiences were mirrored, how easy that made it to talk about even with one of the people who had caused her own pain.

So maybe being into her wasn’t much weirder, or maybe it _was_ that much weirder, who the fuck knows. Either way the attachment was there and Girlie didn’t think she wanted to shake it. Though she didn’t know if she wanted to _act_ on it, either.

For now she was happy enough to just sit there, head on Carolina’s shoulder and enjoying her company. If Carolina’s head dropped against hers, then that was only a bonus.

 

Time flew by and New Armonia started to take shape. Elections were organised. People were slowly settling into non-military jobs despite remaining technically enlisted until things had settled.

Girlie found her place helping to create strongholds and maximise their supplies, making sure they’d never be left struggling again, even should the negotiations with the UEG go badly. She was no politician, she never had been; the best way she could help these people was to share the skills she’d learned during her days in the Insurrection.

It was nice to feel like she might be making a difference.

By the end of the second month after the final fight, she’d officially been declared a member of Red Team. That was fun, _they_ were fun. Sarge acted kind of like the grumpy old dad she’d never really had; Donut was an all around entertainer, whether he meant to be or not; Simmons was a gigantic nerd, but they’d found a little solidarity in their respective ‘cyborg’ statuses; and Grif was a great guy to relax with, they’d gotten on well since that first day in the jeep. Having a team again took some getting used to and she had to remind herself often that she wasn’t _replacing_ her family, but it was refreshing. Feeling as if she had a home.

As she settled, she watched Carolina do the same. Blue Team had absorbed her into their number and Carolina fit in fine, once she started to relax. Everything after the _Staff of Charon_ had been a seemingly never-ending process of handling the aftermath, of handling their loss, but time and distance let them start to heal.

They still spent many of their evenings together, wandering around the city or sitting somewhere away from the bustle of the occupied sectors. After Girlie’s surgery Carolina even helped her with her physio and then sparring, getting her back to full strength. Girlie did her best to return the favour by listening and helping her figure out how to talk to Washington.

Talking and sparring had helped her work out her issues, more than anything. Where her old resentments lingered, she knew to ignore them. They were in-built, a coping mechanism from a time long passed, but that didn’t mean she had to listen to them. Nah, she could tell them to fuck off.

Carolina was amused by her methods. Apparently she’d never thought of telling the intrusive voice in her head to fuck off quite so literally. Girlie told her she should try it some time.

If she were honest, Girlie had expected if her feelings towards Carolina to fade over time. Expected that the crush was just that, a crush brought on by unexpected kindness from an attractive woman after years of being alone. Instead, the more she got to know Carolina the more she liked her.

Still, she didn’t dare make a move.

Nah. Apparently, _that_ was down to Carolina.

They were changing after a long sparring session, unbothered by undressing around each other as they took off their sweaty work-out clothes. They’d been bantering back and forth all afternoon and it hadn’t stopped once they left the training hall.

“You know,” Girlie said, putting her tank away and grabbing a new shirt, “I still have a massive scar from where you stabbed me with that— knife-rifle thing.”

Carolina raised a brow, glancing back at her. Girlie turned her torso so she could see the large scar that ran up the centre of her chest. It was just a joking comment, just teasing, but Carolina gained this glint in her eye and retorted with a _very serious_ sounding, “What do you want me to do about it? Kiss it better?”

Which was the moment Girlie knew she was absolutely and truly fucked.

“I can do that, if you’d like,” she continued, setting down what she was holding and walking in her direction.

“Uh—” Girlie’s brain stalled, words caught in the back of her throat. Was this happening? No way this was happening. “…do you want to?”

Carolina’s answer was to approach her and crouch down just enough so that she could easily press light kisses up the length of the scar. A shiver ran down Girlie’s spine as she tried to process what was happening, something she still hadn’t achieved by the time Carolina stood up and kissed her on the lips.

_Okay. Yeah. That was happening._

Stunned as she was it took her an age to return it, but she did. Her hands settled on Carolina’s arms, firm muscle and cold metal. Her eyes slid shut and she took in the feeling of her lips against hers, the slight bump of the scar tissue in the middle of her lower lip.

When Carolina pulled away, Girlie’s eyes remained closed for a good ten seconds longer. Processing.

“Holy shit, okay. Yeah, alright, that’s—”

“Satisfactory?” Carolina said, an amused note to her voice. When Girlie finally opened her eyes she found her smirking.

“…yeah. Satisfactory’s a word,” Girlie said, idly flicking her tongue over her lips. “I’m gonna kiss you again now.”

And she did, catching a laughing Carolina’s lips with hers, pulling her close.

If anyone had told her, years ago, that this was where her future was headed, she wouldn’t have believed them.

But hey, things never did turn out as she expected, did they?


End file.
